text:
I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a good schedule at a good price; it was a lot harder than my normal booking. I ended up finding a suitable enough itinerary at Orbitz. I usually fly American Airlines, but for this trip, the AA flights were much more expensive than I wanted to pay. But I found an itinerary that used British Airways and Air Berlin that I liked. So I booked it.
The trip went just fine. On the morning of the final day of my trip, Dan Norris and I were standing together in Kastrup at the BA ticket counter when the BA agent noticed that I hadn't provided my American Airlines AAdvantage number for the itinerary. (BA and AA are oneworld partners.) So I gave him the number, which he attached to my itinerary, and he informed me that the number would map only to the segments of my flight that I hadn't consumed yet (I had CPH-LHR and then LHR-DFW left to go). I'd need to request credit for my flights prior in the week separately on the web once I got home.
So on Monday after I got home, I went to AA.com to register my BA flights for mileage credit. There was a form to fill out. It took a while to type everything into it, because I had to find my ticket numbers, figure out how to isolate the carrier id from the remainder of the ticket number, and then enter date and flight number information for each segment of my trip for which I was requesting credit. It was probably a 10-minute time investment to get the form filled out.
So I reviewed what I had entered, and then I hit the Submit button. Instantly, I got feedback from the page saying that I couldn't request mileage credit right now, that I would have to wait 15 days before requesting mileage credit. So I recoiled a little bit—filling out that form was a bunch of work—and I opened my calendar application to log myself a reminder to go through the process again in 15 days.
There are a couple of problems here:
- Why did the form force me to enter a bunch of details before telling me that I shouldn't be using this form?
- Why was it necessary in the first place for me to type in the flight date, flight number, and origin and destination information for each segment of the itinerary? The ticket number should have been enough.
The fifteen days passed, and my calendar reminded me to submit my mileage credit form. So I went to work again, gathering my ticket number information, my flight numbers, my dates of travel, and my origin/destination airport codes. I spent another few minutes typing it all in again. Then I clicked Submit. This time: joy. The form said that the submission was complete, and I'd hear back from AA.com via email.
A minute or so later, I got an email in my inbox thanking me for visiting AA.com and confirming that I had issued a mileage credit request. Good: request confirmed.
Then, just a second or two later, I got a second email from AA.com saying this:
Thanks for using AA.com to request mileage credit for your travel on British Airways.Grrrr.... I had to work this hard—twice!—just to find out that I wasn't even going to get to do what I wanted to do? Why didn't they tell me this fifteen days ago?!
I'm sorry to disappoint you but your transatlantic travel on British Airways (or a BA-ticketed flight) is not eligible for AAdvantage mileage credit. British Airways transatlantic flights to/from the United States are specifically excluded from mileage accrual or redemption in the AAdvantage program.
The first experience was annoying. The second experience took the annoyance to a whole new level.
Here are some application design lessons that this story reinforces:
- Don't ask for information you can derive.
- Don't separate feedback from its prerequisite input by any more "distance" (measured in either time or user investment) than absolutely necessary. Especially when there's a chance you're going to deny someone his service, don't make him work any harder or wait any longer than absolutely necessary to let him know.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
The peanut (Arachis hypogaea tuxedoxia) is a species of legume, known for death, peanut allergy, saltiness, the creation of the new wealth in Africa, and being the primary ingredient of peanut butter. The French believe that peanuts are a species of spider.
Origin of the Peanut[edit]
The first peanut was invented by American food allergy enthusiast George Washington Carver in 1943, by splicing the genes of the common garden pea (Pisum sativum), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Homo sapiens democratus) and Bill Gates (Homo sapiens terra vinces). Adding a cane and top hat, the peanut tainted snack foods everywhere, killing thousands of innocent allergenic children who are not old enough to read the ingredients. "My peanut."-Captain Jack Sparrow
Peanut Progression[edit]
The peanut became an instant hit with food allergy enthusiast all over the world. The WFAEA, or World Food Allergy Enthusiast Association, adopted it as their international symbol. The peanut soon appeared in candy bars, trail mixes, and even butter. When George Washington Carver founded the Planters Peanut company, named after his ancestors—"Y'all plantahs," as their masters employers called them—the peanut became instantly affordable and even more salty. In Africa, where salt is treated like gold, the peanut became the new currency. Another therory is that corey was the 1st peanut ever In Mexico, the tortured circus elephants found the peanut to be a preferred reward for the show well performed. By 1953, the peanut was a staple food for the Chinese, replacing rice.
Another therory is that corey was the 1st peanut ever
Food Allergy Crisis[edit]
As the peanut is being found more and more in candy bars and butter, thousands of allergenic children are beginning to die. The 1954 census concluded a 33% percent population drop for persons under the age of eighteen. Jelly was created as an allergy preventative, but only caused a surge in death tolls because of its high petroleum content. By 1956, and to the dismay of the WFAEA, ingredients were required by law to provide contents of snack foods. Unfortunately, children who cannot read were unprotected by this law. Thousands more died from anaphylaxis. The WFAEA began its climb towards world domination.
The Peanut Today[edit]
The peanut today is the main currency of Nigeria. It is the staple food of North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the circus elephants of Latin America. It is one of the cheapest and most inexpensive foods one can buy. High in protein (thanks to Arnold), but not considered a meat, it is a favorite of vegans. The Planters Peanut Plant is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many new flavors came out since the creation of the peanut. Such as:
- Butter
- Salt
- More Salt
- Some More Butter
- Even More Salt
- Baked
What to do if your child is choking on a peanut...[edit]
The first thing to do is to not panic! Don't Panic! Above all DO NOT PANIC!!!!! If you do, your child might live, and you don't want that, do you? Wha...? You do?! What kind of pervert are you!?!
Anyway, a child's window of life when choking on a peanut is dependent on volume consumption. A single peanut gives you a two hour window to save his life. Dr. Heimlich developed these life saving techniques in the occurrence that your child had eaten a peanut:
1. Read the ingredients to make sure your child is not faking
2. Give them a spoonful of antihistamine (Benadryl)
3. Inject him with an epinephrine pen full of heroin
4. If he is not cured, give him some more antihistamine
5. If still nothing, kick your child
6. Call an ambulance and inject more heroin
7. Give him a glass of milk
And if all else fails, perform the Hemlock Remover:
1. Place your left hand on his shoulder
2. With your right hand, hit him across his back, moving your fist in an upward motion
3. Repeat until item has been coughed up. Or until neighbors look through the window and charge you with child-abuse.
If everything fails, hang your child.
What to do if your child has an allergic reaction to a peanut...[edit]
1. Panic.
2. Panic until their lips are turning blue. It's well known scientific fact that anything you do before then is ultimately useless.
3. Make a cup of tea as you stare at the corpse.
4. Kick them a few times to make sure they aren't faking.
5. Kick them again, only a bit harder to make double sure.
6. Phone up your best friend and have a two-hour conversation about the price of cabbages, the funny lump on your neck that's getting bigger and how you think Ethel's husband two doors down is having an affair with the girl with the glasses in the newsagents.
7. Remember that your child is dead.
8. Pack as many clothes as you can into a suitcase, not forgetting your passport.
9. Hail a taxi and get to the nearest airport. Remember to empty your savings from the bank first though.
10. Call a doctor.
Peanut Logic[edit]
According to Franklin Sherman, a contemporary thinker, peanuts are not peas; rather, they are nuts. If we take this to be true, then peanut is unequal to pea and
from which can be derived that
From this equation we know the now well-known truth that dividing anything by a pea will end the world. This has saved humanity many times. But more on the subject of peanuts... This leads us to another astonishing truth: peanut is unequal to 0, which makes it safe to divide things by peanuts. From this equation can also be derived that is unequal to 0, therefore nut is unequal to 0 and nuts are unequal to peas, which equal 0. Therefore, nuts are not peas.
See Also[edit]
- Genetic engineering
- Democratic Party
- The Obscure Peanut Cult of Yellow Island
- Peanuts
- Peanut allergy
- Ramblings of a crazed peanut lover.


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Colliding Computer Science and Social Science at the VU II
Source: Think Links
As a computer scientist, I've always found it inspirational talking to people from other disciplines. There are always interesting problems where computational techniques could be applied and also questions about what we would have to improve in order to use technology in these disciplines. I also know from talking to a range of people (biologists, communication scientists, etc) that they often feel excited about the opportunity to work with cutting edge computer science.
But even with excitement on both sides, it is hard to engage in interdisciplinary work. We are often pulled to our own communities for a variety of reasons (incentives, social structure, vocabulary…) and even when we do engage, it is often only for the length of one project. Afterwards, the collaboration dwindles.
The VU (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) through the Network Institute has been putting effort in trying to increase and extend interdisciplinary engagement. In June, Iina Hellsten and I organized a half-day symposium for discussion about collaborations between social science and computer science. It was successful in two respects:
- It generated excitement.
- It identified a set of challenges and opportunities for collaboration.
We followed up this symposium two months later (Aug. 28, 2009) with a second meeting this time focused on turning this excitement into concrete initiatives. We had 13 participants this time again with attendees from both computer science and social science.
The meeting started by breaking into three groups where we spent about 40 minutes generating concrete collaboration ideas in the context of the 4 challenges and 4 opportunities identified at the last meeting. We ensured that each group had members from computer science and social science. After that session each group presented their top 3 ideas. Groups were good at using the "technology":
After this session, the group selected three areas of interest and then discussed how these could be concretely acted upon.
Here are the results:
1. Advertising collaborations
One issue that came up was the difficulty in knowing what the other discipline was doing and whether collaboration would be helpful.
- Announcement of talks on a central site. Simply, if the agent simulation group in CS is having a talk perhaps the organization architectures social science group would want to know about it. We thought we could use the Network Institute Linked In Group for this.
- Consulting. I thought this was a fun idea… Here, one could advertise their willingness to spend 1/2, 1, or two days with a person from the other discipline advising and helping them out with no expectations on either side. For example, if a social scientist wanted to have help running a large scale analysis, a computer scientist could help for a day without expecting to have to continue to help. Likewise, a computer scientist wanting a social scientist to check if their paper on analyzing twitter was theoretically sound, the social scientist could spend a half day with them. It was proposed that the Network Institute could offer incentives for this.
2. Interdisciplinary master and PhD student projects.
Collaborating through students can provide a way to build longer lasting collaborations.
- One initiative would be to advertise c_o-supervised masters projects_ hopefully as soon as this November.
- Since PhD students usually require funding, it was felt there needs to be more collaboration on obtaining research funding between faculties. One challenge here is knowing what calls could be targeted. To attack this problem, we thought the subsidy desk at the VU could start a s_pecial email list for interdisciplinary calls_.
3. Processing large-scale data
Large scale data (from the web or otherwise) was of interest to a big chunk of the people in the room. There was a feeling that it would be nice to know what sorts of data sets people have or what data sets they were looking for.
- As a first step, we imagine a structured event sometime in 2011 where participants would present the data sets they have or what data sets they are looking for, and what analysis they aim to do. The aim of the event would be to try and build one-to-one connections across disciplines.
I think the group as a whole felt that these ideas could be straightforwardly put into practice and would lead to deeper and lasting collaborations between social and computer science. It would be great to hear your ideas along with comments and questions below.
Filed under: academia Tagged: collaboration, computer science, network institute, social science, vu


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photo 02
photo 03
With wedding season around the corner we wanted to introduce you to wedding photographer, Elizabeth Lloyd.
Her approach is energetic and thoughtful and her photographs are natural, unposed and modern. She has been dubbed the ninja photographer by many clients because of her agility and commitment to getting the best shot.
Elizabeth travels throughout the US, Mexico and beyond photographing weddings. Please visit her website for more gorgeous examples of her work and hire her! You'll be glad you did.
I asked Elizabeth to caption her photos below:
photo 01: Helen and Dominique: Charleston, South Carolina
This is what my favorite photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson coined 'the decisive moment'. I'm so grateful that I caught this wonderful moment on film.
photo 02:: Meghan and Ben: Bucerias, Mexico
Ben and Meghan were a very fun couple and hired a donkey to come hang out at their wedding. I wanted to document them with it in a way that was playful but not too posed. It was a fun moment and I wanted that to come across.
photo 03:: Guy and Rebecca: Los Angeles, California
It's a challenge to take a bridal party shot that looks natural! By letting them 'get their lean on' and interact with each other, and then by stepping back into the bushes for a birds-eye point of view, it makes things look a little less staged, and a little cooler. I loved this group and I knew they would like something a little funkier.


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Introduction to Modifications to Normae de Gravioribus Delictis
Introduction to Modifications to Normae de Gravioribus Delictis
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
The new text of the Normae de gravioribus delictis, as revised by Pope Benedict XVI on 21 May 2010, contains modifications to both the substantial and the procedural norms found in the original text of Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela.
The following are the changes introduced into the text:
A) The following faculties, originally granted by Pope John Paul II to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later confirmed by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, on 6 May 2005, have been introduced into the text:
1. The right, as mandated by the Roman Pontiff, to judge Cardinals, Patriarchs, Legates of the Apostolic See, Bishops and other physical persons found in CIC can. 1405 § 3 and CCEO can. 1061 (art. 1 § 2);
2. The extension of the term of prescription of a criminal action to twenty years, maintaining the right of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to derogate from prescription on a case by case basis (art. 7);
3. The faculty to dispense from the requirement of priesthood and the requirement of a doctorate in canon law for the personnel of the Tribunal, advocates and procurators (art. 15);
4. The faculty to sanate acts in cases where only procedural laws have been violated by an inferior Tribunal, guaranteeing, always, the right to a proper defense (art. 18);
5. The faculty to dispense from a judicial trial and, therefore, to proceed per decretum extra iudicium. In these cases the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after a careful examination of the facts, decides on a case by case basis when to authorize an extra-judicial (administrative) process, at the request of the Ordinary or local Hierarch or ex officio (in any of these cases, the imposition of a perpetual, expiatory penalty requires the mandate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) (art. 21 § 2 n. 1);
6. The faculty to present cases directly to the Holy Father for dimissio e statu clericali or depositio, una cum dispensation a lege caelibatus; to proceed in this manner, in addition to the extreme gravity of the particular case, the commission of the delict in question must be manifest and the right to a proper defense of the accused must be guaranteed (art. 21 § 2 n. 2);
7. The faculty to make recourse to the superior instance of judgment of the Ordinary Session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith against administrative acts issued or approved by the same Congregation in a lower grade of judgment, in cases of reserved delicts (art. 27).
B) The following modifications have also been introduced into the text:
8. The delicta contra fidem (heresy, apostasy and schism) have been included; for these delicts, the norms indicate a particular competence for the local Ordinary to proceed ad normam iuris, either in a judicial manner or extra iudicium in the first instance, maintaining the right of appeal or recourse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (art. 1 § 1 and art. 2);
9. Regarding the Eucharist, the two delicts of attentatio liturgicae eucharistici Sacrificii actionis (CIC can. 1378 § 2 n. 1) and the simulation of the same (CIC can. 1379; CCEO can. 1443) are no longer considered in a united way in the same paragraph but are now considered under separate numbers (art. 3 § 1 nn. 2 and 3);
10. Also concerning delicts against the Eucharist, with respect to the previous version of the text, the phrase "alterius materiae sine altera" has been replaced with the expression "unius materiae vel utriusque" and the phrase "aut etiam utriusque extra eucharisticam celebrationem" has been replaced with "aut extra eam" (art. 3 § 2);
11. Regarding the Sacrament of Penance, the crimes specified in CIC can. 1378 § 2 (attempting to impart sacramental absolution or hearing a sacramental confession, when one cannot do so validly) and CIC 1379 and CCEO can. 1443 (simulation of sacramental absolution) have been included in the text (art. 4 § 1 nn. 2 and 3);
12. Also included among the delicts are the indirect violation of the seal (art. 4 § 1 n. 5), the recording and divulgation of a sacramental confession done with malice (decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 23 September 1988) (art. 4 § 2);
13. The attempted ordination of a woman has also been introduced as a delict in the new text, as established by the decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 19 December 2007 (art. 5);
14. Among the delicta contra mores: a person over 18 years of age who is developmentally disabled is equated to a minor exclusively in regards to art. 6 § 1 n. 1;
15. Also added as delicts are the acquisition, possession or distribution in any way and by any means of pornographic images of minors under the age of 14, a clerico turpe patrata, (art. 6 § 1 n. 2);
16. It is clarified that the munera processui praeliminaria may be, but need not necessarily be, undertaken directly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (art. 17);
17. The possibility of taking the cautionary measures foreseen in CIC Can. 1722 and CCEO can. 1473 during the preliminary investigation is allowed (art. 19).
Given at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
William Cardinal LEVADA
Luis F. LADARIA, SJ
Titular Archbishop of Thibica
Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church and to the Ordinaries and Hierarchs
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Nine years after the promulgation of the Apostolic Letter Motu proprio data, "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela", regarding the norms de gravioribus delictis reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this Dicastery held it necessary to proceed with a reform of the above mentioned text, emending it not in its entirety, but only in certain areas, in order to render the text more useful.
After a thorough and attentive study of the proposed modifications to the norms, the Fathers of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presented the Roman Pontiff with a draft. The Holy Father approved and ordered the promulgation of these revised norms on 21 May 2010.
Attached with this letter is a brief description of the changes and amendments of the normative text, "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela". In this way, the modifications are rendered more immediately accessible.
Rome, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 21 May 2010.
William Cardinal LEVADA
Luis F. LADARIA, SJ
Titular Archbishop of Thibica Secretary
Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
21 July 2010, page 3
L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
The Weekly Edition in English is published for the US by:
The Cathedral Foundation
L'Osservatore Romano English Edition
880 Park Avenue
P.O. Box 777
Baltimore, MD 21203
Phone: (443) 263-0248
Fax: (443) 524-3155


text:
The other day, Rafael of WithinWindows fame discovered a weird bug in Windows 7 that causes all MSI-based installations to fail. Chris123NT wrote it up, describing it as an SQM (part of CIEP, the internal feedback program) bug:
Many users have started experiencing random crashing of explorer and msiexec.exe when trying to start Windows Update or install anything that uses an MSI based installer. This issue is bad enough that some people have even formatted because of it, only to have it come back again.
Rafael has discovered that the fault lies with the SQM Client which is part of the Customer Experience Improvement Program. It seems that ANY process that calls WinSqmStartSession in ntdll.dll will start crashing when MachineThrottling is enabled in the registry, which seems to happen as a result of CEIP running.
There are two workarounds for this issue.
Bryant at AeroXperience followed this up with an editorial of sorts ...
Until this is all resolved, if you're a beta tester, please kill the CEIP in Windows 7 and proceed to report any UX quirks you run into through the submit feedback tool next to the minimize button in the titlebar of every major window.
And even Mary Jo Foley got in on the act.
Bryant and I had an IM exchange about it this afternoon and he noted that it needs to be publicized. I agree with that. But. Is it a SQM client bug?
Not necessarily. Rafael tells me that ...
Chris and I both reported this bug to Microsoft as part of a team effort. (The beta program has started "team-based bug reporting.") With regards to the problem, all I know is the fault lies within ntdll.dll, in a function named WinSqmStartSession. The SQM API is naturally undocumented so it is unclear as to what the exact problem is at this time.
It was noted that upon process execution, renaming the registry value works. It's a bit of a stretch to claim "Machine Throttling" is the cause of failure here. I will investigate it further.
Regardless, something is going on. I'm curious to see what Microsoft has to say about this in the coming days.
UPDATE: Microsoft has already provided a "fix" for the bug, which is acknowledges is "an issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7." It will be trigger via the Windows 7 Action Center, naturally. Thanks to everyone that wrote in about this.


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NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was about a week away from wrapping up an 11-month journey to the Red Planet in 1999 when engineers noticed a problem – the spacecraft, designed to study Mars' environment, was not where it was supposed to be.
The gap grew alarmingly over the next few days. On September 23, Climate Orbiter began the brake to enter Mars' orbit as planned, but disappeared behind the planet 49 seconds early, severing radio contact with Earth. It was never heard from again.
Launching probes to Mars is not for the faint of heart. Out of the 40 spacecraft dispatched to the Red Planet, only 14 lived to fulfill their missions.
Against those grim odds, NASA is poised for its most unorthodox and risky landing yet. The $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to touch down at 1:31 a.m. EDT Monday (0431 GMT) next to a mountain that may harbor life-friendly environments.
"This is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted," NASA's associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld told reporters during a pre-landing news conference last month.
To deliver the one-ton robotic geologist near the mountain's base, engineers designed a contraption that would make cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg beam. The rover, about the size of a Mini Cooper car, is too heavy to bounce to the planet's surface in airbags or fly itself with rocket thrusters, systems successfully used by six previous NASA landers.
Instead, Mars Science Lab will be lowered to the ground on a tether spooled out by a flying platform that works like an aerial crane. NASA is the first to admit the idea sounds crazy, but managers are convinced it will work.
"We've done everything we could. We've tested everything we could test. We built everything to the best of our ability," said Doug McCuistion, who oversees NASA's Mars exploration programs. "Once you understand it, it's not a crazy concept."
History is not on NASA's side, though the United States has fared far better than Russia when it comes to Mars exploration. Out of 19 attempted missions, Russia and the former Soviet Union have had only a few partial successes.
Launch failures claimed nearly half of Russia's probes, including the ambitious Phobos-Grunt sample return mission last year. Other spacecraft sailed blindly past Mars or burned up in the planet's atmosphere during landing attempts.
Newcomers Japan and China have fared no better. Only Europe, which operates the Mars Express orbiter, has had beginner's luck on Mars.
"We learn from these things even if they aren't successful," McCuistion said.
Investigators have attributed the failed 1999 Climate Orbiter mission to human error: The flight software used metric units while the ground system that wrote the code used Imperial measures.
Two months later, a companion lander bit the dust – literally – when its rocket engines apparently shut down too early, causing the probe to crash to the ground.
And even when the engineering is perfect, Mars itself can throw mean curve balls. NASA's Mariner 9 and two Soviet orbiters arrived in May 1971 to find a global-wide dust storm in progress.
"We don't have the capability to predict these things," McCuistion said. "That is why Mars wins an awful lot of the time."
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense


text:
A real track record is better than backtesting! I am looking for
- products, funds, certificates, indices etc. that are based on
- quantitative trading strategies where the
- strategies and performance data are completely transparent and reproducible (apart perhaps from trading costs).
The markets and locations are not important as long as the above mentioned criteria are met. The track record could be negative or positive (from both we learn). The underlyings could also be all kinds of asset classes (linear or non-linear products).


text:
Abe and Josie Connally are two of my maker heros. Their infectious positivity and passion for preserving the environment fuel their unfaltering dedication to living the DIY off-grid homesteading dream. They've built their homestead from the ground up in the hills of Chihuahua, Mexico, and they relish in sharing their know-how with the greater maker community through their site, Vela Creations. Their names have appeared in at least 11 volumes of MAKE, and they've taught us how to make wind generators, seed starters, honey cows, solar food dryers, compressed earth brick floors, fabric-formed posts, solar wax melters, and more. We recently caught up with Abe to get a window into off-grid life: building, growing, teaching, and raising two beautiful kids.
1. What was your first foray into off-grid living?
We bought 20 acres of pristine desert in southwest Texas, where we met. There was nothing on or near it — no structure, water, electricity, phone, sewage, etc. It was 30 miles from the nearest population and 60 miles from the closest town. We started off living in a small bus, retrofitted with solar panels, kitchen, bed, table, and shelves. Piece by piece, we built our own amenities: an adobe house, rainwater catchment, a power system with solar and wind, composting toilet, garden, goats, and chickens. As we figured out how to handle each aspect of living off-grid, we became increasingly addicted.
2. Tell us about the homestead you and your wife Josie have created.
We have lived on our current property for 5 years now. This is our second off-grid homestead built from scratch. We started off building small: one room, one water tank, a small power system, a basic garden. We called it the "off-grid starter kit." Each year we have added to each system, integrating them as much as possible to increase efficiency.
The house (now very spacious at 1300 square feet) is half buried on the north, with huge windows on the south. In winter, the solar gain from the windows and hot water pipes under the brick floors heat the house, while the roof insulation and thermal mass of the earth keeps that heat in. In summer, it stays cool. Windows are placed for maximum through-breeze, while the thermal mass, insulation, and eaves over the windows prevent the heat from getting in.
We catch rainwater from the roof. We currently have 8000 gallons of storage capacity (including the tank on the rabbit shed), although those are already almost full after one month of rain. That is enough to last us through the nine dry months of the year. However, we plan to add more tanks this year, so that we can have gardens, fish, and orchards year round. We also have two new ponds, one of which is in the animal pastures, that are starting to fill. We have a solar water heating system that not only provides us with plenty of hot water, but also heats the floors in winter.
Our electricity comes from the wind and sun. We can run any appliance we want, although we are naturally conservative and never waste power needlessly. Both our fridge and freezer are super efficient, and we use low-energy appliances where possible (like laptops).
We produce a large part of our food requirements, and are currently working towards increasing that supply. So far, we have gardens, some fruit trees, pigs, rabbits, and poultry. We hope to include fish and more perennial vegetables this year.
Our waste streams are pretty low. We compost everything organic, or feed it to the earthworms and black soldier flies. And as for inorganic wastes, we either try to avoid or reuse them. We still have a ways to go before being completely self-sufficient, but we're getting there, step by step.
3. How did you learn the homesteading skills you have?
We read and research a lot, both via books, magazines, and online. And then we jump in. Whatever we can't learn from others, we figure out through trial and error (the error part often being the most instructive).
A lot of it was upbringing, too. We both had parents who encouraged us to learn and do things for ourselves. They took away the fear of trying something new. We have a natural curiosity about the world around us, and that helps us figure out how things work or should work.
4. What motivates you to share your knowledge with others?
Just as we have learned from others, we want to be able to give something back. Knowledge acquired purely for your own gains seems somehow hollow. The true joy comes from sharing. We often get comments that we have inspired or helped someone to do something, and that is almost better than getting to enjoy the things we create.
Plus, there have been several occasions when someone has done something using our information and then gone on to find a way to improve it, benefiting all of us. That's the beauty of open source: the combination of all of our ideas, resources, and innovations will create a far stronger end product.
5. You recently gave a tour of your homestead to 20 professors. Tell us how that came about and what they were most interested in.
People have always found our homesteads to be interesting and exciting. They want to come check it out, hearing that we were doing things that are different. At first, it was individuals or families. Then they would bring friends.
A few of the professors that came as a group had been here before and decided they wanted to organize a larger gathering of like-minded colleagues. They were mostly professors of ecology, animal management, and architecture. Some were also members of the local and regional governments. They came here to see examples of concepts that work in real life.
The thing that caught their attention the most was the rainwater catchment and cisterns we have made. Our region has been in the grips of a major drought for the last year, and it has affected every aspect of life. Without water, life flounders, and to provide a whole homestead (with animals and plants included) with enough water to make it flourish at such little cost, is indeed an important accomplishment.
When nearby towns didn't have enough water for their citizens, people started noticing that we always seemed to have plenty of water, even on this dry hilltop without a well, spring, or creek. This caught the attention of local and regional governments as a possible solution to their water shortages. So they came to see for themselves how we can do so much with so little.
6. What's the hardest part of being off-grid? What are the unique challenges to raising kids off-grid?
Lots of people assume that raising kids off-grid might be hard, but that is not the case. In fact, kids seem naturally suited to this lifestyle. They are constantly outdoors. They love the animals, planting, hiking, and gathering that are involved in our lifestyle. And they get to see and participate in a variety of tasks; there's always a lot to do on a homestead, but it is not monotonous and is not based on a set routine, which suits the attention span of small kids pretty well.
The hardest part of being off-grid is probably trying to remain patient. We started with nothing and have been gradually working towards self-sustainability. We're not there yet, and that's the rub. We start researching some project we want to do in the future and we get all excited. But there are so many demands on our time and we have to prioritize, so sometimes the exciting stuff just has to be added to the bottom of the list. So, part of living on a homestead is adapting to a different pace of how you approach projects.
7. Tell us about yourself: what's your background, how did you get started making things, and who are your inspirations?
I was raised in rural New Mexico and Texas. My mom was a science teacher and my dad a rancher, so between those two, I was encouraged to participate in all kinds of projects and chores. Ever since I was a boy, I loved creating things out of junk. To this day, my greatest passion is figuring out how to use someone's garbage to solve an engineering problem.
Josie was born in Africa, raised in Portugal and schooled in England. From both her grandparents and parents, she inherited a certain amount of wanderlust. She learned different languages and cultures fairly easily, simply from being exposed to them. After university she traveled and worked in several different places, from the Amazon jungle to a boat on the Mediterranean. Moving from place to place and across cultural and environmental lines opens up a certain adaptability, one that proves useful in the DIY mindset.
As for inspirations, there are too many to list. Everywhere you look there is something and someone that can teach and inspire you. We've been inspired by things as simple as petals on a flower. But, if it's any help in answering your question, our first son, Leo, was named after Leonardo De Vinci, and Nico was named after Nikola Tesla.
8. What new idea/project has excited you most recently?
Our most exciting project at the moment is Food Web. This is an integrated and sustainable food production system. Food Web is a holistic approach to food, focusing on animal welfare, waste integration, water conservation, innovative feed systems, and profitability for small farmers. We're making a working model of the idea, and writing a book. The book, Food Web Volume I, includes all details of construction and planning of the working model, as well as a full description of the input, output, integration, processing, and products of each animal included in the web.
We started a crowd-funded campaign through Indiegogo to help raise some money to give us a little boost and precipitate this endeavor. We raised 13% of our goal in the first day, so we're very excited. If anyone wants to help out, they can visit the page and "like it," pass it around to friends and family, or contribute in exchange for various reward packages.
9. What are your top three indispensable tools?
My favorite tool is my Casio calculator watch. I'm constantly playing with that thing, figuring out how many fish can be grown in a water tank, or the load of a concrete roof, or biofuel yield from a certain feedstock.
Our next favorite tool is the internet. Research plays a big part in what we do, and without the internet, it would really slow things down. The internet is an amazing resource for people like us.
One of the best, simple tools on a homestead is the water level. It's basically a clear tube with water in it. So simple, yet extremely useful and accurate for getting a level over a large distance. We use it regularly to level sites for projects, water lines, swales, and countless other things around the homestead.
10. What advice would you give to folks who are interested in moving toward an off-grid lifestyle?
There are so many things that people can do to become a little more sustainable. The first and foremost is conservation. Turn lights off you're not using, don't run a tap needlessly, use efficient appliances. Try and look around you and see if you can become a little more streamline. Start looking at where your energy goes, where your water is used, and what you can do to reduce these footprints.
Trash is another big factor. Try and reuse inorganic items as much as possible and get some earthworms for everything organic. It is amazing how much soil-building material is just thrown away. Healthy soil is the path towards true wealth, so don't let your wealth go to a landfill.
On most of the major systems, like energy, shelter, and water, we suggest building something small, just to get your feet wet and see if you like it. Make yourself a small shed or greenhouse, with rainwater catchment and a small power system. Or put a gutter on your existing roof, start recharging your batteries with a small solar panel, or make a swing for your kids. It's amazing how addictive the DIY bug can be.
But perhaps, more than anything, we would suggest people try to produce some of their own food. That can be a tomato plant, a couple of chickens or rabbits, or a wicking bed. The possibilities are endless. It all depends on what you have space for. Homegrown food tastes so much better than anything you can buy, and it won't have any kind of chemical or additive (unless you put one in). To us, food is synonymous with health, and that's not something that we can trust to companies that only care about their profit margin.
That is what our Food Web concept is all about. It's about getting people to start with something that they can participate in and take control of, like producing some food in their backyard. Once you start, you can look at ways to improve and optimize, from integrating animals to planting perennials for long-term production. But the key is taking that first step, no matter how small.
Never assume you can't do something. Do your research, make your plans, and give it a go, no matter what it is. You'll be amazed at what you can do!
For more information, visit Abe and Josie's Vela Creations site. Also, be sure to check out a list of their MAKE articles and their how-tos in Make: Projects.
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Home >
News & Policies >
June 2008
For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
June 9, 2008
Interview of the First Lady by Jonathan Karl, ABC News
Brdo Castle
Kranj, Slovenia
June 8, 2008
Q Well, thank you again for talking to us, and for an amazing trip to Afghanistan.
MRS. BUSH: It was great, wasn't it? Really terrific.
Q So tell me -- watching you, it was fascinating to watch you as kind of a foreign policy player, and I'm wondering your thoughts on what the foreign policy role of a First Lady is.
MRS. BUSH: Well, I mean, I think there -- obviously I'm not a foreign policy player. I mean, I'm not privy to all the information that the Secretary of State, obviously, who is a foreign policy player, or the President gets every single day. I don't get that, those sort of briefings. But on the other hand, I do think there's a diplomatic role that the First Lady can play by reaching out to countries that she happens to have a particular interest in.
And so for me that's Afghanistan. I've been very interested, especially in the plight of women and children since September 11th when all of us in the United States looked at Afghanistan and saw how oppressive the Taliban was and how particularly brutal life was for women and for children. And so that's just been something I've been interested in the whole time George has been President.
Q But it seems that recently you've had a very public role on the diplomatic front, and maybe even on the policy front. I mean, you became the -- I think the first First Lady in American history to do a press conference in the White House briefing room -- of course on Burma. Have you -- are you taking a more assertive role than you have in the past?
MRS. BUSH: Well, I don't know if I would call it that. I think I just know more. You know, I'm more educated about the situation in Burma and the situation in Afghanistan, just after having lived here in the White House for seven years. I've just learned more about it and know more about it, and Burma certainly. And especially after the cyclone we all looked at Burma and it's just so difficult and so sad and so really, I think, very, very difficult for people in the United States to know that we had all the help we had right off the coast of Burma and that the government would never allow us in.
There's something that's really disappointing, really frustrating about that. And it's just really one of the most difficult things that's happened, I think, since my husband has been President, and that is to know that we had help there and that they wouldn't allow it in.
Q When you look at that and you consider more than 2 million people affected and all that American help was right off the coast, the --
MRS. BUSH: Should we have gone in?
Q Should we have gone in anyway?
MRS. BUSH: You know, I don't know. I mean, I think that's the question. I think that's what goes over and over in my mind is, I want the people of Burma to know that the people of United States know what their situation is, that we knew what their situation was before even the natural disaster, but the detention of their Nobel Prize winner, the woman whose party was elected overwhelmingly and then never allowed -- that party was never allowed to govern, and the country has been decimated, just like Afghanistan was under the Taliban. But I want the people of Burma to know that, and I don't think they'll ever know, although I do think they listen to Voice of America and BBC and some other radio stations that go into Burma. So maybe they'll know by that.
Q But do you think there will come a time when we look back on this and we realize --
MRS. BUSH: And wonder if we should have --
Q Yes.
MRS. BUSH: I don't know. I mean, it's always easy to look back and it's very hard to project what really would have happened if we had done that. And so it's always easy to look back and say, oh, we should have done this or we should have done that, but without knowing what the real consequences would have been. We did fly in over 100 big cargo planes of aid, and I think that was good.
Q Did you ever talk to the President about the possibility of going in?
MRS. BUSH: Yes, I mean, we talked about it off and on the whole time it was there. And I didn't see a lot of coverage. I only saw one news coverage on what was on those ships, the Navy ships that were there on the coast of Burma. And one thing they had were these huge trucks that could drive off with big desalinization equipment so they could make fresh water, a lot of fresh water, and be able to store it or to get -- put it in some other sort of storage so that people who don't have fresh water now because of the effects of the cyclone could have fresh water. And of course water and food is so critical.
Q So getting back to your trip to Afghanistan, I've got to ask you about the welcome you got -- the so-called "Kiwi welcome." What was --
MRS. BUSH: That was unexpected, wasn't it? (Laughter.)
Q What was going through your head as these shirtless guys were charging at you with spears?
MRS. BUSH: I thought that was really great. I actually know about the haka because there's one football team in Texas that won state last year that happens to have a lot of Tongans -- immigrants from -- that live around DFW -- in that area of Dallas-Fort Worth. And they do the haka. If I didn't already know about it and hadn't already seen this football team on television do this, I might have been really surprised by it.
But it was fun and it was exciting and I think it's just an example of how the international community is so involved in Afghanistan. And this is a PRT from New Zealand. They're very, very happy about the work they're doing for Afghanistan. This group that are there are new -- they just had come over the last couple of months, I think, replacing the former team from New Zealand. But it shows that the international community is very involved and that there are these groups representing governments -- obviously all the NATO allies as well that are working in Afghanistan.
And I think that's encouraging as we go up to this week's donors conference in Paris, and that is to continue this support from all around the world for Afghanistan. One of the things you and I both saw was how poor Afghanistan is and how complete, really, the destruction of 30 years of war and the last regime, the very brutal Taliban regime -- how difficult it is to build a country when you already have that much poverty, no infrastructure -- none of the things that any country that wants to thrive economically needs to build.
Q And you said that the rest of the world, the international community needs to do more.
MRS. BUSH: Well, I mean, I hope they will at least sustain their commitment at this donors conference. There was a donors conference a couple of years ago -- there was, I think, very good commitment on the part of the international community, and this is just a way for the international community to assure Afghanistan that they'll stay with them, with all of these big projects that are going to take a long time to do.
Q And this is -- and you made reference -- this is a long-term project.
MRS. BUSH: It's a long-term. You can tell that from seeing it. None of these things are easy. None of the big, big infrastructure items like highways or hydroelectric power or electricity to parts of the country that have never had electricity. Plus you have this country that's mountainous, many, many very remote villages, very, very cold winters, when it makes it almost impossible because there are no roads to get into a lot of these remote mountainous villages. And if they should suffer this year, like we're afraid several parts of the world will with the food crisis, then it'll be very difficult to even get food to those rural parts of Afghanistan.
Q If you were to -- you know, looking out in the future -- obviously Yogi Berra said predictions are difficult, especially about the future. But, I mean, a long-term commitment to Afghanistan is clearly necessary -- you suggested it. How many years do you think the United States is going to be there on the ground involved in a significant way in Afghanistan?
MRS. BUSH: Well, I think people -- I think the United States will be very involved, not with troops necessarily, I hope -- I mean, I hope the Taliban is routed and that the people of Afghanistan, as they build their own police force and own army, which they're in the midst of doing -- we saw those women, police women recruits when we were there, which is very encouraging -- but I hope that we'll stay involved with these humanitarian commitments.
And we've done that in other parts of the world over our history, and I hope we'll do that here because it will take a long time because they're not only building the infrastructure, physical infrastructure, but they have to build a civil society infrastructure -- but written a constitution. I mean, that's really incredible that they've written a constitution. They have a democratically elected government, and now they need to continue to build that infrastructure of laws, of business law and contract law and civil society so they can attract capital from around the world and be able to build finally a driving economy -- and the schools that they want.
And they're desperate for education, and that was the message I got from all those young people I met who are either in college there or still in high school.
Q And one other question about the Kiwi welcome. The thing that was going through my mind -- I mean, what -- obviously you knew it was coming and everything else, but --
MRS. BUSH: It was sort of a shock when -- especially the one, he did say afterwards, "how did you like my special move?" that jumped up to me and then slid and fell. That was very funny.
Q And the Secret Service -- what's going through their -- those guys' minds --
MRS. BUSH: Well, they knew. They knew what the haka was going to be like, I think. But you're supposed to stare at them straight in the eyes. And, of course, I was wearing sunglasses because of the sand in my contacts -- (laughter) -- and the sun. But I was really trying to stare them straight in the eye.
Q Now, I have to ask you about politics here. We have, of course, about the time you were leaving on this trip, former First Lady Hillary Clinton formally conceded the race. Is there any part of you, in any way, that was disappointed that for this time anyway the opportunity for a woman President in the United States has been lost?
MRS. BUSH: Well, of course, I want the woman President to be a Republican woman. But I will say I watched the campaign, and I admire Hillary's grit and strength. And I know what it's like to run those campaigns and I -- or, to be the candidate, and how very difficult it is, both emotionally and physically. It's a huge endurance -- process of endurance. And so I'll have to say I have a lot of admiration for her endurance and her strength.
Q How do you think she did?
MRS. BUSH: I think she did great. I mean, I know it's hard. It's hard to do that, and I think she did great.
Q And what do you make of Barack Obama?
MRS. BUSH: I don't know. I mean, I just don't know that much about him. Obviously I'm for John McCain, and I think John McCain will make the better President. I think he's by far much more experienced. But it will be interesting. These election years are always very interesting in the United States, and this is a particularly interesting one. I'm glad we're not in it. (Laughter.) It's great to watch one from the sidelines, really for the first time in a long time for us, because we had George's dad as Vice President, and then as a presidential candidate, and so it's sort of nice to watch from the sidelines.
Q Are you going to miss it?
MRS. BUSH: I'm going to miss, obviously, living in the beautiful White House and all the people that we know in Washington, both the people that work at the White House, our own staff, and all of those people. But I look forward to a private life again, and a more normal life.
Q And is there any way that you'd ever get involved yourself?
MRS. BUSH: Run myself? No, absolutely not. I mean, I'm looking forward to continuing to work on things I've worked on like Afghanistan and Burma and literacy and education -- all the things I've always worked on, and I hope I'll be able to do that through George's presidential library. And then I'm very interested -- we're going to move back to Dallas -- in doing things in Dallas -- not political things, but things that I think will be supportive for our city and our state.
Q You've probably seen that Michelle Obama has come under fire for a number of different things, but, one, when she said for the first time in her adult life she's proud to be an American. What did you make of that?
MRS. BUSH: I don't know. I don't know what -- I think she probably meant, "I'm more proud," you know, is what she really meant. You have to be really careful in what you say. I mean, I know that, and that's one of the things you learn. And that's one of the really difficult parts both of running for President and for being the spouse of the President, and that is, everything you say is looked at, and in many cases, misconstrued in some. It's just -- I think it's something you learn over time, and that is to be pretty careful.
Q Is it a legitimate issue in a campaign to bring up what a spouse has said or done? I mean, is that legitimate to a campaign?
MRS. BUSH: Every issue ends up being legitimate to a campaign. I mean, every -- whether they're legitimate or not, they get brought up. I think it's very hard to say we can't talk about this, or can't talk about that. People are going to talk about it anyway.
Q I wanted to ask you the legacy question. Eight years is almost over. You are, by all the polls, perhaps the most -- I mean, undoubtedly the most popular figure associated with the Bush administration, approval rating twice that of the -- twice as high as the President's. What do you think will be the most important -- your most important legacy? And what unfinished business do you think that you're leaving behind that you would like to --
MRS. BUSH: Well, certainly -- and I'm sure the President would say this -- exactly the same thing for him -- that part of the unfinished business is obviously the international part that's going to last longer than any presidency, and that would be Iraq and that would be Afghanistan and Burma -- those three countries that I've been particularly interested in, and he has too. But I do think those are things that I can continue to work on. I won't have the platform I had before, but I can certainly continue to pay attention to those countries.
I hope that things like the National Book Festival that we started in 2001 will continue. This will be its eighth year this year, and so I hope every fall people -- that it will be an institution, and every fall people can go to the National Mall to meet their favorite authors.
And, I mean, it's easy to look at eight years and see what you accomplished and see what you wish had been accomplished, and I think that happens for everyone, for anybody who serves any time -- looks at -- in any role as an elected official -- not just President, obviously. But I think we -- my husband has a unbelievable legacy, and I know he may not be that popular right now, as you say, but we've liberated two countries; 50 million people have been liberated from very brutal regimes, and I think that's really important. The President stood on the side -- and the United States has -- of all the emerging democracies here in Central Europe, where we are now -- and I think he really -- he's going to have a really unbelievably great legacy, with the advantage of hindsight.
Q So you're confident history will vindicate the President.
MRS. BUSH: I am, absolutely. I think it's -- we've been -- these are some of the most interesting and challenging historical times -- times in history ever for the United States, with what happened on September 11th and the whole idea of terrorism. And it's something we didn't expect in our country. We felt like we weren't vulnerable -- we were protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific -- but come to find out we were.
Q Thank you so much for talking to us.
MRS. BUSH: Thanks a lot. Thank you, Jonathan.
Q Appreciate it.
MRS. BUSH: Thank you very much.
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The FCC reached another milestone today in its implementation of Universal Service reforms to ensure rural Americans have access to voice and robust broadband services – including extending broadband to the millions of Americans that are unserved today.
Our primary tool to achieve this goal is the transformation of the former high-cost fund – the program supporting rural voice service – to a Connect America Fund supporting modern networks that provide both broadband and voice service. Phase II implementation is well underway for those areas of the country where 80% of unserved Americans live and key to this transformation is targeting funding efficiently to the areas where it is needed most, outside areas where competitive providers operate. With our last Broadband Progress Report, we posted an online map of broadband service today, including the unserved areas where 19 million Americans live.
Today's milestone – a Report and Order– is the next step toward adopting a final cost model that will pinpoint as accurately as possible how much support is needed, on a granular (census- block) level, to deliver both voice and broadband, without overspending. The model framework – an "efficient provider framework" – adopted by Commission staff today resolves key assumptions about the design of the network and network engineering, including by:
- Calculating costs in a way that best approximates the discipline of competitive markets with multiple providers.
- Building on the known costs of deploying efficient modern networks. These costs can be lower than those of legacy networks, often built in a piecemeal fashion that compounds inefficiencies.
- Looking forward to the average monthly cost that is necessary to support modern, efficient networks over the long-term, rather than attempting to model past investments in legacy networks.
This framework was constructed with the input of many to ensure sufficient support for rural networks, while being fair to the American consumers and businesses that pay into the Connect America Fund. This efficient provider approach results in more reliable cost estimates than other methods parties previously proposed.
We look forward to continued public input as we finalize this model in order to implement Phase II of the Connect America Fund in the coming months.


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Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It's free!
Monday November 24, 2008 12:48 pm
GoodSearch Assists Nonprofits
Yahoo and GoodShop have teamed to create GoodSearch, which allows you to donate money to over 70,000 nonprofits when you shop online. About 800 retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Apple are participating. Simply purchase through Goodshop and up to 37% of the purchase price goes to the user's favorite cause. Prices are the same as on the partner's site and there are often coupons and discounts added. Use the Goodsearch engine alone and about a penny goes to the cause as well.
(Thanks, Aviva)
Read More | GoodSearch
Latest Gear Live Videos
© Gear Live Inc. {year} – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.


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When determining how much pasta to purchase, it is best to buy according to weight because it is difficult to measure the varying sizes and shapes of pasta. If following a recipe, purchase the amount required by the recipe. If determining the amount to purchase according to the number of people to be served, you need to consider whether the pasta will be serve as the main course or a side dish. Keep in mind that if you purchase and cook more pasta than you need, the excess can be stored and reheated. The following information may be helpful in determining your needs. The quantities in the chart below are approximates only.
The quantities above are basic standards that can be used for estimating the quantity to buy. Another option for estimating your needs is to refer to the table on the backside of the package, which shows yields for that specific type of pasta. When using fresh pasta in place of dried pasta, the amount used will need to be adjusted because when cooked, dried pasta will produce close to 60% more than the fresh pasta. If the recipe calls for 16 ounces of dried pasta, you will need approximately 26 ounces of fresh pasta. |


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(visited by Wang Jun, Li Hong Wen, Zhang Rui Lin, Li Xiao Li and Han Yong Cai)
09-Aug-2008 -- 这是个有纪念意义的日子,此次西行,按通俗的叫法是:"避运",昨晚在死人沟里看的奥运开幕式。说好听点我们是为了在"314"之后拉动西藏旅游业才大胆地来"避运"的呀。其实感觉这一路都更加安全了。
English Narrative
09-Aug-2008 -- There is a memorable day, this trip to west of China, according to popular saying, is: "Avoid misery". Last night we watched the Olympic opening ceremony on TV at the "Death Valley". We came to Tibet for the purpose of supporting the tourism industry in Tibet ,. As you know, after the the "314" event the tourism industry of Tibet were suffered a lot. In fact, we felt much safer on the way here.
Yesterday evening we finally arrived at the famous "Dead Valley", Stayed in a small Muslim family inn , there we were watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at same time enjoyed a simple noodle dinner. The hostess of the inn is a devout Muslim, when we watched the opening ceremony she went to another house to pray. It was very meaningful to celebrate the OlympicGames in this "Death Valley". Although we left Beijing, here is almost the farthest place away from Beijing, well, we were watching the Games with the local people and the truck drivers we just met at this small inn. Sounds like everybody in China cares about Olympics.
Today we started early to reach this point, since we entered Xinjiang area the weather changed a lot, it was quite different from Tibet, much colder. At this point we took some photos.


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US Weekly is reporting exclusively that Prince William is quitting his job flying search and rescue helicopters with the Royal Air Force. He's expected to confirm these plans publicly in the new few weeks and by the time Baby Wales arrives, he'll be unemployed. Obviously the royal heir has a lot to do with the decision but it may also have been motivated by the fact that the search and rescue service will soon be privatised as the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force will be outsourcing the operation to a US firm. Needless to say, they wouldn't want the future King of England being bossed around by Americans.
US Weekly also reports that Will and his Catherine are in Anglesey together this week enjoying some time to themselves. She hasn't been back in Wales since finding out she was pregnant. As for Will's plans after the RAF, the Palace says he's still deciding although the magazine's source says he's interested in more opportunities with the armed forces. Is William allowed to be as hardcore as Harry and serve in Afghanistan or similar? Probably not, right? If it were me I wouldn't permit it either.


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Will 'Weird Al' Yankovic Perform At The Next Super Bowl?
Super Bowl halftime shows are running out of big names to capture the attention of fans. Two comedians are suggesting a weird choice for next year's Super Bowl halftime show.
Comedy musicians Paul and Storm proposed the idea of letting noted song-parody artist "Weird Al" Yankovic perform as the halftime act during the next Super Bowl, and some people have started to support the idea.
Paul and Storm believe Weird Al would make for an ideal halftime act because of his "incredibly wide, positive appeal," "wide swath of musical styles" and "unparalleled showmanship and production values."
So far, the suggestion has been garnering some serious support. New York Daily News columnist Julian Garcia came to the same conclusion after watching Madonna perform.
Go ahead and laugh. That's what he wants you to do. And that's exactly what you will be doing at halftime of Super Bowl XVLII if I get my way.
SB Nation columnist Christopher Gates noted that next year marks Yankovic's 30th year in the business since the release of his first self-titled album. Gates contends if the NFL hired Weird Al for the show, the last thing they would have to worry about is another wardrobe malfunction or loose middle finger.
And honestly, can you even remotely picture Weird Al doing anything offensive and embarrassing on stage during his performance? I can't even remember the man using curse words in any of his parodies over the years…obviously the guy can do a "clean" show.
We wholeheartedly agree, except for one little detail: Clearly Gates hasn't seen Yankovic's "Perform This Way" video. We still can't erase it from our minds.
[Via Fark]


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I was in grad school in Madison, Wisconsin learning about China's economic reforms back in the 1980s, and it was hard not to imagine that you were looking at the buds of an important change in the world. Taiwan, Hong Kong and the U.S. were homes to remarkable Chinese success stories. Why not the mainland, too, if it were to reform? I was part of a group of UW-Madison faculty and student volunteers that helped visiting Chinese students and scholars get acclimated to Madison and the U.S., and was able to hear first-hand the enthusiasm and remarkable tales of China from that era.
Ping Fu harkens back to that time in her new book "Bend, Not Break." Fu, today a successful American entrepreneur whose company is to be acquired by 3D Systems , this month discussed her book, her experience in China during the Cultural Revolution and subsequent immigration to the U.S. in an interview with my New York-based colleague Jenna Goudreau, who writes about women's issues for Forbes. Jenna was approached by the book's publicists and attracted by the remarkable story presented by Fu. I haven't read the book yet, nor do I know Fu, except for exchanging email this week. Jenna, not a China hand herself, initially got a few key details of Fu's comments wrong, but has since corrected them online. Here's a link to Jenna's story (click here) and the Chinese-language version of it published by Forbes China, our licensed Chinese-language edition (click here).
In fairness to readers, however, it needs to be noted that criticism of some elements of the book's accuracy has been ferocious, both in and outside of China. For a flavor, you can click here on Amazon.com. You can also see a range of reader comments at Jenna's blog.
Jenna will have some follow-up comments from Fu later today about the controversy. If you're following this discussion, you'll want to keep an eye out.
--Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina


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International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) will provide 6,000 families in Gaza (about 42,000 people) with food, blankets, and hygiene supplies with a new $750,000 grant from ARD Inc. through funding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). IOCC is targeting the neediest, including those who have been displaced or are living in war-damaged homes, have experienced the death or injury of a family member, or who have a primary bread winner that is unemployed as a result of the conflict.
The deadliest conflict in Gaza in four decades has killed 1,300, wounded 5,300, and displaced more than 26,000. IOCC's Jerusalem-based staff responded quickly to the crisis, coordinating efforts with local organizations and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem to deliver fortified biscuits and milk to 23,000 children and adults residing in shelters and affected communities throughout Gaza. IOCC also assisted beleaguered hospitals and shelters by providing thousands of quilts and hygiene kits.
"The situation in Gaza remains very critical," says Dirk Lackovic'-Van Gorp, IOCC representative for Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza. "Significant numbers of people need food and the population is very traumatized and in need of psychological counseling." Officials estimate that 14,000 homes have been partially or completely destroyed and that schools and hospitals, as well as water, sewage and electrical facilities, have all sustained significant damage.
IOCC is also planning a $175,000 program through funding from Action by Churches Together (ACT) that will rebuild community centers and provide work for unemployed construction workers. His Beatitude Theophilus III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, has blessed IOCC efforts and authorized it to work with His Grace Bishop Alexios of Gaza to assist 30 isolated and vulnerable Orthodox families in Gaza City with $20,000 in emergency home repairs.
Help IOCC speed relief to families who have been caught in this conflict. Visit www.iocc.org, call IOCC toll free at 1-877-803-4622, or mail a check or money order payable to "IOCC" and write "Middle East Relief" in the memo line to: IOCC, P.O. Box 630225, Baltimore, Md. 21263-0225.
IOCC, founded in 1992 as the official humanitarian aid agency of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), has implemented over $300 million in relief and development programs in more than 33 countries around the world.


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Apology Letter for an Invoice or Billing Error
Financial matters are a big issue for many people. They will get upset when they find there is a billing error that they get. It is best to issue a letter of apology for an invoice or billing error.
Here is an example of a letter of apology for a billing error:
December 20, 2010
Scott Glean
Accounts Supervisor
ACME Company
987 Business Center Circle
Juneau, Alaska 99876
William Told
876 Glacier Drive
Humet, CA 92353
Dear Mr. Told,
You might have received invoice number 1200 from our company during the past days. The said invoice states that you are to pay for $250 but the correct amount to be paid is only $25. We are very sorry for having sent the wrong amount to you. Our billing system erroneously exchanged the amounts due from our customers. The said amount is supposed to be billed to another customer but the billing department erroneously sent you the wrong amount. We have been experiencing some trouble with our billing system lately and we do apologize for the inconvenience such error might have caused you. You have been one of our top customers and we treasure your continued patronage.
We assure you that this will not happen again because we will soon be availing the services of telecommunications service providers. Our company will soon be undergoing a system upgrade. This step will surely minimize billing issues for two primary reasons: Reduce the impact on the customer and the customer care organization and reduce the negative revenue impact, by controlling both actual dollars lost and customer churn. Customer churn, also known as customer attrition, customer turnover or customer defection, is a business term used to describe loss of clients or customers.
We understand the need for all companies to have an invoice verification process to evaluate the sample output from every billing cycle. No company should believe that there is no need to do this. Things do change, and do go wrong, even if nothing has been modified in the actual billing software. As problems are discovered, ad hoc tools should be in place to immediately determine the impact on the customer and company finances. If the problems are found to be minor in both categories, the cycle can usually be approved, and customer inquiries and issues managed after the fact.
We value our customers and we always want them to be satisfied with the service that we deliver. Our customers are the lifeblood of our business. We assure you that your next billing statement will be updated and it will reflect the correct bill.
Thank you,
Scott Glean
Accounts Supervisor
ACME Company


text:
Date is 2010-04-13, times are UTC+02.
22:55 <alanc> Good afternoon. Meeting should begin in about 5 minutes 22:56 <+mherrb> Hi 23:01 <+emmes> heho 23:01 <marcheu> hmm, we have 3 Soc slots :( 23:02 <alanc> seems to be around the typical number - I think we usually have 3-4 slots for 10-12 applicants 23:03 <marcheu> alanc: usually 4-5 23:03 <+Bart_Massey> Minute or two late; sorry. 23:03 <alanc> okay, was about to say Bart might remember better how many GSoC slots we had in the past 23:03 <+Bart_Massey> It has varied widely. 23:03 <+Bart_Massey> Sometimes just two or three. Sometimes as many as 7? 23:04 <+Bart_Massey> Do we know what we've got this year yet? 23:04 <marcheu> nope, we had 4/5/2/4 23:04 <marcheu> this year we're at 3 23:04 <+Bart_Massey> OK, you knew the answer :-) 23:04 <dberkholz> hi there 23:04 <marcheu> hopefully we get a 4th in the process 23:05 <alanc> did anyone get the mail I sent yesterday to board & members with the pointer to the summary of last meeting and reminder for today? 23:05 <dberkholz> gentoo may or may not have some extra slottage it could slide toward xorg 23:05 <+mherrb> alanc: no I didn't get it afaict. 23:05 <dberkholz> let me know how many projects xorg can't live without 23:05 <dberkholz> alanc: no, i didn't get it. i just saw you link it on irc 23:05 <alanc> I seem to be unable to send to those lists or receive mail from it since my address changed - haven't been getting notices that they' re stuck in the moderation queues either 23:06 <agd5f> alanc: I don't recall seeing it 23:06 <alanc> guess I'll poke the sitewranglers later 23:07 <alanc> I didn't make any progress on my action of talking to the lawyers (or talking to Bart to get their contact info) - I don't see any ot her outstanding actions from the last meeting 23:08 <agd5f> well, we can always do evoc for good applicants beyond 3 23:08 <marcheu> agd5f: yup, but I'll ask for additional slots first. you can ask to be put on the waiting line so I'll do that 23:09 <agd5f> I'd like to finalize who we want as our new tech and admin contacts for x.org 23:09 <agd5f> domain stuff 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> Sorry, AFK. Yes, EVoC is a fine backup. PSU may have slots for you too; it looks like we may get more than we really need if all goes well. 23:10 <marcheu> Bart_Massey: you cannot transfer from an org to another directly though 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> agd5f I *think* we want SFLC for admin. Technical matters less, because the admin can change it, I think. 23:11 <dberkholz> marcheu: in my experience, you can tell google where you want extra slots to go and they will respect it 23:11 <+Bart_Massey> marcheu: No, but if we ask nicely in the past they've always said yes. :-) 23:11 <agd5f> Matt suggested SFLC for the admin contact. is there a person we want or a generic address? as for the tech contact, is sitewrangers @freedesktop.org appropriate or do we want a specific person? 23:11 <+Bart_Massey> agd5f: Generic would be best. I think they'll want a tech contact physical address, so I don't know how to do sitewranglers. 23:12 <agd5f> Bart_Massey: maybe the hosting address? 23:12 <alanc> do we still have a PO Box in portland? 23:12 <+Bart_Massey> agd5f: If they will surely forward our physical mail. 23:12 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: I don't think so. keithp? 23:13 <alanc> hrm, http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgFoundation lists one as our contact address 23:13 * Bart_Massey s/surely/reliably/ :-( 23:13 <+mherrb> afaict the dns stuff is hosted on expo. someone with root on expo should be tech c. 23:13 <+keithp> alanc: our PO box expired; we hadn't received any mail there for over a year 23:13 <+keithp> so I didn't renew it. I didn't realize it was listed as a contact address 23:13 <+Bart_Massey> mherrb: For sure. It would be nice to have a role rather than an individual, though. 23:13 <alanc> I think the root on expo has a high overlap with sitewranglers 23:13 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: I don't think it is right now. 23:14 <alanc> we can remove it from the wiki page easily 23:14 <+keithp> alanc: probably a good idea 23:14 <alanc> Done 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> I forget why we don't just hire a mail-forwarding agent? 23:14 <alanc> http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgFoundation?action=diff 23:15 <+Bart_Massey> It seems ideal for us... 23:16 <dberkholz> there's a startup headquartered in portland that will open and scan all your mail 23:16 <dberkholz> or forward it, if desired 23:17 <+Bart_Massey> Yes, Earth-Class Mail 23:17 <+Bart_Massey> I know the owner pretty well... 23:17 <+Bart_Massey> Their plan is to use robots, but I think right now they just hire people. :-) 23:18 <+Bart_Massey> But I was thinking just a Mailboxes-etc type place that would give us a PO Box and throw everything in a big mailing envelope once in a while and mail it to Alan's house. 23:20 <alanc> if we actually got mail, that would seem reasonable, and better able to cope with the secretary changing every year or two 23:21 <agd5f> seems like a good plan 23:21 <alanc> so going back to the original question: did we decide on who the domain contacts should be? email@example.com for admin? 23:21 <+Bart_Massey> No, sflc for admin 23:21 <+Bart_Massey> sitewranglers for tech 23:22 <+mherrb> if you look at fd.o they have generic fd.o LLC for both admin and thec 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> Get a PO box to give as a physical addr f 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> or sitewranglers 23:22 <agd5f> so for sflc, what email should we use? 23:22 <alanc> right, I was thinking sysadmin, meant tech 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> agd5f: Their office, presumably 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> Ask them. 23:23 <alanc> freedesktop.org whois gives a paper mail address for them of 7615 SW 59th Ave, Portland, OR - wonder who that actually is 23:23 <+Bart_Massey> :-) 23:23 <agd5f> ok. will do. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't someone there that we are currently working with that we wanted to use 23:23 <+Bart_Massey> Talk to Karen Sandler 23:24 <+Bart_Massey> She's our contact person at SFLC. 23:24 <+Bart_Massey> She will tell you what to do, I think. 23:24 <agd5f> Bart_Massey: Can you email me her contact info? 23:24 <+Bart_Massey> Working. 23:25 <+Bart_Massey> agd5f: Now I just need *your* contact info and I'm set. :-) 23:25 <+Bart_Massey> Just a sec. 23:27 <+Bart_Massey> OK. Anything else today? 23:27 <alanc> The one piece of news I have to report is that I've been informed Hideki Hiura passed away last week. Most of you probably don't re member him, but he was one of the original Xlib Input Method framework authors for X11R6, and one of the founders/chairs of openi18n.org/li18nux.or g with the FSG. 23:28 <+Bart_Massey> How sad. Can you send condolences someplace appropriate on behalf of the Board? 23:28 <alanc> I have e-mail for his wife I can send a note to 23:29 <+emmes> Yes, I think that would be appropriate. 23:29 <+mherrb> sure. 23:29 <agd5f> yes 23:29 <dberkholz> it would be really nice to send a physical card 23:29 <+Bart_Massey> Thanks! 23:30 <+Bart_Massey> Move to adjourn 23:30 <agd5f> seconded 23:30 <+keithp> ta ta 23:30 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: ? 23:31 <alanc> sounds like we're adjourned to me 23:31 <+Bart_Massey> Thanks all! 23:31 <+emmes> nothing from my side 23:31 <alanc> I've got that all the members except anholt were in attendance


text:
In London this morning, another tragic attack. This time people leaving Ramadan services from two local mosques in the north of the city were plowed down by a man driving a van. One person died on the scene. Others were injured. Prime Minister Theresa May spoke about the incident earlier this morning.
PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY: This was an attack on Muslims near their place of worship. And like all terrorism, in whatever form, it shares the same fundamental goal. It seeks to drive us apart and to break the precious bonds of solidarity and citizenship that we share in this country.
GREENE: The prime minister says police declared the attack a terrorist incident within eight minutes. A 48-year-old man is in custody now. We are joined by The Guardian's police and crime correspondent Vikram Dodd, who has been reporting from the scene. And it's a reminder of what Britain has been dealing with because we spoke to you not so long ago after the terrorist attack in Manchester. Vikram, thanks for coming back on.
VIKRAM DODD: Yes. We must stop meeting like this.
GREENE: I agree with that. So what was the scene like this morning when you were out there?
DODD: The scene was people milling on the streets. It's a very warm period of weather over here. And people, mainly Muslim people, were gathered just in some degree of shock, horror, anger, concern that this had happened. I think they'd had a almost fear verging on something on the back of their mind whether something like - something might happen. But I don't think anybody's expecting it at this time, at this place and in this way.
GREENE: What do we know about the attacker, this man in custody?
DODD: We don't know a huge amount. As I keep saying, our criminal justice system is very different to yours, so they don't give us that much information that quickly. But he's 48. He appears to have been in the van on his own. And he appears to have said a few things. He's - I think he said at one stage that he get - he plows into these people, and he tries to escape. He's caught by the members of the - who were passersby, people who had been at, you know, the services after prayers. And they hold on to him. I think some throw the old punch his way, but others protect him.
And then he's taken to - handed over to the police. And he - I want to say (unintelligible) is heard saying kill me. And then when he's placed in the police van in safety, he keeps - a video out shows him giving a wave as if he's goading the people as he's safely in the police van with the crowd now on the other side of the door of the police van. So I mean that's just - God knows what was going through his mind at that stage.
GREENE: It's - what an extraordinary scene. I mean you're describing literally almost like a citizen's arrest with some of the people who have left prayers holding on to him, others trying to punch him while others are trying to protect him. I mean that - God, the emotion there - I can't even imagine.
DODD: Yeah, I mean it's an astonishing scene. I mean, you know, I think there was one of the (unintelligible) inconsistent with trying to stop him from escaping. But there's a local imam who is - we always have to be careful. First accounts are often wrong. And there seems to be a number of people saying that one of the local imams stepped in to say, let's hand him over to the police; let's do this the proper way. And others were like that as well, which is, you know, remarkable given what's just happened. People were literally in fear for their lives. They don't know whether this person has a knife. They don't know if there's something in the van. They don't know if there's other attackers - yeah, incredible.
GREENE: We spoke earlier with the president of the Muslim Association of Britain who said that Islamophobic attacks are on the rise in Britain. Are you seeing that?
DODD: What we have is phenomenon here where there's a baseline of attacks of hate crimes that we've had. We had spikes last summer after the Brexit votes which was directed against general ethnic minorities. And then we've had spikes after the attacks in Manchester and London Bridge. They say they're on the rise. The figures seem to bear them out. They spike, but then they fall back.
GREENE: OK. Vikram Dodd is the police and crime correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. He was on the scene this morning after people were attacked, leaving two mosques in north London this morning. Vikram, thanks very much.
DODD: Thank you very much. Cheers. Bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
"Imagine if somebody suggested we shouldn't discuss terrorism after 9/11 or fire safety after Triangle Shirtwaist or lifeboats after Titanic," George W. Bush's not-insane former speechwriter, David Frum tweeted on Saturday, before adding satirically: "1502 people have DROWNED! This is no time to insult their memory by asking why there weren't enough lifeboats to save them."
Not to pile on... but it's time to pile on. In just one recent 24-hour period in America:
- Gunman in Sandy Hook School Shooting In Newtown Forced Way Into School; Teacher Hid Kids
- Two dead after Excalibur hotel shooting in Las Vegas:
A gunman killed an employee and then himself Friday night - Police kill gunman who wounded 3 at Ala. hospital
- Oklahoma student arrested in alleged school massacre plot
And that's just a few of them. Moreover, as Brad Friedman highlighted in memoriam, from Eric Boehlert's tweet Sunday morning: "And yes, in the 48 hrs since the Newtown shooting, more than 160 Americans have died from gun fire; 300+ have been injured."
Yet, just as they did after the mass shooting outside the strip mall in Tucson, AZ last year, and after the mass shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, CO this past July, and after the mass shooting at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, WI this past August, and after the mass shooting at the shopping mall in Portland, OR earlier last week, apologists for the NRA have gone into overdrive after the mass shooting of 7 adults and 20 children at the elementary school in Newtown, CT that took place in a matter of minutes this past Friday, proclaiming "now is not the time" to discuss America's current gun policy because that would amount to "politicizing tragedy".
Those same apologists tell us that any discussion of policy changes that might prevent innocent children and unarmed civilians from being slaughtered must be postponed to some later date that never actually arrives.
Other wealthy nations have developed different gun policies that have drastically reduced gun violence in their countries while still allowing law-abiding private citizens to own firearms. For example, Australia passed strict gun control and access laws in 1996, after 13 mass shootings in 18 years. How many mass shootings have there been in Australia since the new laws passed? Zero. Could we gain insight from gun policies instituted by other governments? Perhaps --- but here in America, land of free speech and home of the brave, we are told we can't discuss it now...
Again, another horror of gun violence explodes on top of the daily carnage of smaller-scale gun violence wrecking lives all across America on any given day. It has become abundantly clear that more guns in America have NOT made us safer, yet the mantra is to attack and scold: "now is not the time."
One tweeter responded this way to a tweet by @TheBradBlog over the weekend...
@greennewsreport @thebradblog Answer: when u can win hearts & minds, instead of looking like an opportunistic jerk. #Politics101
— Mark A. Green (@MarkGreenFuture) December 14, 2012
So... we shouldn't talk about why America is awash in deadly gun violence because some people might call us "opportunistic jerk[s]"?
If it prevents another massacre of 20 little kids (or anyone else for that matter) ... then, yeah: I'm okay with that.
We don't have to settle for America as shooting gallery. Preventable tragedies of this scale and impact appropriately shake our society into re-assessing our own policies, or lack thereof. Policy outcomes from around the world indicate that reasoned, pragmatic approaches can succeed in reducing gun violence while still respecting individual rights. We can do better. Now IS the time.
As a matter of fact, the time was long ago. Ernie Canning's startling list of mass shootings in the U.S. since 1966 makes that plain.
As several have said once again --- as they have after too many recent similar tragedies --- it's not too soon to talk about what we must do as a nation...if anything, it's too late.
Desi Doyen is co-host and Managing Editor of The BRAD BLOG's Green News Report. Follow her on Twitter: @GreenNewsReport


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Microsoft Makes Itself at Home in Transylvania
In what is perhaps a sign of desperation, Microsoft is really pushing governments around the world to sign up to el cheapo mega-deals that they think they can't refuse. The FSFE's Georg Greve points out to me in an email that there's an interesting angle to this story in Romania:It seems ironic that the European Commission has to fine Microsoft repeatedly over sustained monopoly abuse, then transfers part of that money to Romania, which enjoyed the highest level of financial support ever granted to a candidate country in the history of the European Union, and the Romanian government then decides to return part of that money to Microsoft with close to no tangible benefit for Romania.
He also points out that taking this route might backfire badly on Romania:Considering the recent freeze of EU funds due to corruption in Bulgaria, this decision of the Romanian government seems careless and dangerous for the sustained economic growth of the country in more than one way: By endangering EU support, by increasing dependency on proprietary software for the economy, and by wasting funds that could have been used for much-needed infrastructure projects.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.


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t's high season for consumer electronics. Manufacturers of various gadgets are unveiling their holiday lineups. Add to that products surrounding a new version of Windows that came out Friday.
Here's a recap of the announcements so far:
— Sept. 4: Microsoft Corp. releases the first major update to its server operating system since 2009, a prelude to releasing Windows 8 to consumers in October. Microsoft says Windows Server 2012 adds features that make it easier to manage large clusters of servers in data centers remotely.
— Sept. 5: Nokia Corp. unveils its first phones running the next version of Windows. The company didn't reveal prices and says only that the Windows Phone 8 devices will be available in the fourth quarter "in select markets." The two devices are under Nokia's Lumia brand.
Motorola Mobility, under new owner Google Inc., announces three smartphones borrowing the Razr brand, the name of the hit clamshell phone from 2004.
— Sept. 6: Amazon.com Inc. announces four new Kindle Fire tablet computers as it steps up competition with Apple Inc. and its iPad. Two of the models have screens nearly as large as the iPad's, at lower prices. Those will start shipping in November, while the smaller, 7-inch models start selling Sept. 14. Amazon also refreshes its line of stand-alone e-readers.
— Sept. 10: Toys R Us says it plans to launch its own Android tablet computer aimed at children. Called Tabeo, it goes on sale on Oct. 21 for $150. The 7-inch touch-screen tablet will come with 50 apps selected for children, including such games as "Angry Birds" and "Fruit Ninja" and a book app called istorybooks. Toys R Us sells other electronics including the iPad, but this is its first store-brand tablet.
— Sept. 12: Apple unveils a bigger, lighter iPhone, with an ability to connect to faster data networks known as 4G. The iPhone 5 goes on sale in the U.S. on Sept. 21. Apple also refreshes the iPod Nano and the iPod Touch and introduces a new type of headphone called EarPods, which are meant to fit comfortably in more people's ears.
— Sept. 13: Nintendo says its new Wii U game machine will go on sale in the U.S. on Nov. 18, starting at $300. It also announces an entertainment component called Nintendo TVii. The service collects all the ways users have to watch movies, TV shows and sports, such as through cable TV, Hulu and Netflix.
— Sept. 26: Barnes & Noble announces an update to its Nook tablet with sleek new hardware and a sharper high-definition screen. A 7-inch model starts at $199, and a 9-inch one starts at $269. They will go on sale Nov. 1.
— Oct. 16: Microsoft says its first tablet computer, the Surface, will start at $499 when it goes on sale Oct. 26. The signature hardware feature of the tablet, a cover that doubles as a keyboard, will cost another $100. The prices are for the Surface models with the type of chips common in phones andtablet computers. Microsoft plans a heavier version running Intel chips and a full-powered version of Windows. Availability and prices for that model weren't announced.
— Oct. 23: Apple unveils a faster, full-sized iPad along with a smaller one called the iPad Mini. They will go on sale Nov. 2, with advance orders starting Friday. Apple also refreshed its lineup of Mac computers. It unveiled a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a sharper screen, available immediately. New iMacs with 21.5-inch screens will go on sale in November and 27-inch models will be available in December.
— Oct. 24: Samsung launches the Galaxy Note II, a smartphone with a 5.5 inch screen. That's larger than the 4.8 inches on Samsung's Galaxy S III and 4 inches on the iPhone 5. The Note comes with a stylus and runs the latest version of Google's Android operating system, Jelly Bean.
— Oct. 25: Microsoft kicks off campaign for Windows 8 operating system and Surface tablet computer. Windows 8 is a major change and is designed to make desktop and laptop computers work more like tablets. Surface, meanwhile, represents Microsoft's first foray into making a general-purpose computer.
— Oct. 26: Sales of Windows 8 software and devices, including Surface, begin. Apple starts taking advance orders for the new iPads. Initial shipments of some versions sell out on Apple's site, meaning buyers have to wait an extra week for delivery.
— Monday: Google announces a larger version of its Nexus tablet, with a screen slightly larger than the full-sized iPad's and a price tag that is $100 lower. It's also adding cellular capabilities to the Nexus 7 and doubling the capacity of existing models. Microsoft launches its Windows Phone 8 software and promises to catch up in offering third-party apps.
Contact: RuoTian.Zhong
Phone: 13988889999
Tel: 020-87961814
Email: email@example.com
Add: Guangdong guangzhou tianhe balance sand too road sand road


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Welcome to FiberArts.org
Welcome to FiberArts.org. FiberArts.org exists to provide support to everyone involved in the fiber arts on a not-for-profit basis. Free resources and services are intended for individuals, clubs, guilds, associations and organizations - as long as your focus is on advancing interest in or the state of the fiber arts. This is a volunteer operated site with no commercial interest.
Some of our resources are: classified ads, searchable listing of fiber related suppliers, fiber links, events calendar and guild/group listings, etc. Most of these online resources can be updated directly.
Your comments, suggestions and help are always appreciated.